Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike DeWine says that, should they be successful in November’s election, he and his running mate Jon Husted plan to do what they can to help Ohio’s struggling nuclear plants. “I can tell you, without getting into the details, we have already started to do that,” DeWine told local community leaders during a roundtable discussion with stakeholders at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Plant on July 12. “This should not be a partisan political issue,” he added.

Ottawa County Commissioner Jim Sass said he is disappointed there hasn’t been more of an effort to prevent a potential closure of Davis-Besse and Perry. “If there was a business that was going to come into Ohio and create 1,400 jobs (700 D-B, 700 Perry), I can’t help but think somebody, somewhere would be doing whatever they could to entice that company to come in here,” Jim told the candidates. “We are not going to gain 1,400 jobs, but we may well lose 1,400 jobs.”

“We cannot predict (the future),” current Attorney General DeWine told the group. “What makes sense is the prudent approach to be comprehensive and have many different sources of energy. I don’t think it makes any sense at all at this point in time in Ohio’s history or the country’s history to be decommissioning nuclear plants,” Mike stated. “It makes no sense to me to be closing this facility and that’s not even talking about what many of you have pointed out … the economic impact, the human impact on communities in this part of the state.”

Secretary of State Husted agreed, “You can’t get to your goal of carbon reduction and do it without nuclear power. As a society, we say we care about this, but our actions and our policies do not follow what we say we want to achieve.” Site Vice President Mark Bezilla and FirstEnergy Solutions Generating Companies President and CNO Don Moul led the candidates on a short plant tour, including a visit to the control room. “You walk in here, there’s no doubt it’s well run,” Mike said. “That culture clearly permeates the whole plant.”